CCTV News (Focus Interview): The large amount of marine plastic waste and its serious harm are global problems. It is not easy to manage them. It is also a hurdle that Chinese-style modernization, which is a harmonious coexistence between man and nature, must overcome. The "Blue Cycle" model practiced in Zhejiang has solved this governance problem and won the "Earth Champion Award" issued by the United Nations Environment Program in 2023. The "Earth Champion Award" is the highest honor in the field of environmental protection of the United Nations. It is awarded once a year to recognize individuals, groups and organizations that have a transformative impact on environmental protection. So how did the "Blue Cycle" model come into being? What are its unique innovations? How does it solve the problem of marine plastic pollution management?

The day after fisherman Huang Quanmin returned to the port after fishing, he made a phone call and called the garbage collection ship of the "Blue Cycle" project. Some of the garbage collected by Huang Quanmin was domestic garbage, and more was marine garbage salvaged with fish during operations. In the past, the space on fishing boats was limited. In order to store more fish, Huang Quanmin would directly discharge the garbage into the deep sea. In the past, this was a very common behavior among fishermen. It is estimated that a fishing boat will generate and salvage at least 500 kilograms of domestic and operational garbage every year. How to bring these garbage back and prevent them from flowing into the ocean and causing pollution has always been a headache for the government. Another problem is the garbage on the shore.

Dachen Island, 52 kilometers away from Taizhou City, is a national first-class fishing port and a famous tourist destination. However, behind the beautiful scenery, the endless stream of marine garbage has troubled the sanitation workers on the island for a long time.

There were more than 10 sanitation workers on Dachen Island, and they were increasingly unable to cope with the growing amount of marine garbage. Garbage removal is also a big problem. The island is far away from the land and it takes nearly two hours to reach it. The island does not have the conditions for environmentally friendly garbage disposal. If a chartered ship is used to transport the garbage to land for disposal, the transportation cost is very high. Getting fishermen willing to bring back marine garbage and getting someone to collect the garbage on the shore have always been two difficulties in disposing of marine garbage.

Chen Yuan, Director of the Ocean Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment: "It is mainly because no one collects, the value is low, and it is unsustainable. After being soaked in the sea, marine plastics are not very valuable compared to plastics on land."

According to statistics from the United Nations Environment Program, about 13 million tons of marine garbage flows into the sea through various channels each year, of which more than 85% are plastic products, which is equivalent to a garbage truck dumping plastic garbage into the sea every minute.

The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the protection of the marine ecological environment, and has made strengthening the construction of marine ecological civilization an important part of the construction of ecological civilization. At the beginning of 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution" to regulate the recycling and reuse of plastic waste. Local governments have also been exploring good ways to control marine plastic waste.

Taizhou is a large coastal city. Marine plastic garbage has caused considerable pressure on the ecological environment and fishery resources of Taizhou City, and it is extremely difficult to clean it up comprehensively. Taizhou City wants to solve this problem thoroughly, and they are trying to make a breakthrough in the mechanism.

Chen Xulu, deputy director of the Ocean Department of the Ecological Environment Bureau of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province: "We hope that in the future, the government will lead, enterprises will participate, and the public will also participate to form a diversified governance model."

The disposal of marine plastic waste has always been paid for by the government. There are many difficulties to be solved in order to change from a one-man show by the government to sustainable diversified governance. The first thing to solve is the problem of no one collecting garbage.

Chen Guanghui, deputy general manager and co-founder of Lanjing Technology: "During our research, we found that some fishermen in coastal villages live and make a living by the sea. At that time, we were thinking about whether we could bring them in."

Lanjing Technology is a platform company for marine ecological governance. They participated in the exploration and practice of the "Blue Cycle" project led by the local government. In the past, fishermen had no motivation to bring back garbage, and no one supervised or recycled it. The "Blue Cycle" project adopted an innovative strategy. They encouraged fishermen to bring back marine garbage by rewarding and providing low-interest loans, and sent special personnel to collect it on site. This can not only solve the problem of personnel for recycling garbage, but also reduce the expenses of fishermen, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone. This is what Xu Henghua and his wife did. They found that the fishermen were very motivated.

Xu Henghua, a garbage collector and participant in the Blue Cycle Project: "Fishermen now have a stronger awareness of environmental protection. They know to bring back all the oily sewage and garbage and ask us to come and collect them."

At the same time, in order to encourage more people to join the ranks of collecting marine garbage, "Blue Cycle" provides public welfare jobs for low-income groups in coastal areas and feeds back the profits from recycled garbage to them. Today, more than 40 residents on Dachen Island have joined the "Blue Cycle" project, and they are full of energy.

Chen Yuan: "According to calculations, coastal residents can increase their income by about 1,200 yuan per month. Fishermen can obtain green low-interest financial loans by participating in the "Blue Cycle". So far, they have obtained nearly 120 million yuan in low-interest loans. The "Blue Cycle" tells us that environmental governance and economic development are not contradictory and can promote each other."

Where should the picked up garbage be sent? Some non-recyclable garbage enters the municipal garbage disposal system and is disposed of by the government. Plastics with recycling value are sent to processing companies for recycling. However, compared with the waste plastics on land, the amount of marine plastic waste is too small, and the disposal is more complicated, which cannot bring greater profits, and it is difficult to maintain the sustainability of the project. Blue View Technology has found that in order to fulfill its commitment to carbon reduction and sustainable development responsibilities, more and more leading international companies are willing to invest in the development and promotion of marine recycled plastic products in high-value fields such as electronics, clothing and textiles, so as to make the high-value use of marine plastics possible. This huge market demand will promote the recycling of marine plastics at a higher premium. This should solve the problem of sustainable operation of the project. Blue View found a recycling processing plant that receives marine plastics, but was questioned by them.

Song Ping, general manager of Veolia Huafei Polymer Technology (Zhejiang) Co., Ltd.: "The most important thing is the authenticity and reliability of the source, which is the biggest problem and challenge encountered by the entire industry. New plastics are currently on the market for more than 7,000 yuan per ton, and recycled marine plastics can be as high as more than 30,000 yuan per ton, leading to market chaos, with new plastics pretending to be recycled plastics."

How can we prove that these plastic wastes come from the ocean and the beach instead of land? Zhejiang is a province with a strong digital technology, and big data plays an important role here. On the backend of Blue View Technology, we can see all the fishing boats in the entire Taizhou waters, including the real-time positioning, speed and other information of the fishing boats. Through these data, Blue View can infer and grasp the real garbage generation situation of the fishing boats. Most of these data come from the government. Zhejiang Province launched the opening of government data in 2020, encouraging qualified enterprises to participate in the development and utilization of government data and stimulate the value of data elements. Taizhou City actively practiced and opened part of the data to Blue View after docking and evaluation.

Lin Xianjie, Deputy Secretary-General of the People's Government of Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, Director of the Municipal Government Office, and Director of the Municipal Big Data Bureau: "We use the integrated intelligent public data platform of Zhejiang Province to carry out certain institutional norms for these data. For example, some information of fishing boats has been desensitized, and sensitive data cannot be seen, so that the original data does not leave the domain, the data can be used but not visible, and it can be used, but the specific data cannot be seen."

With these key data provided by the government, the "Blue Cycle" project has achieved the monitoring and traceability of fishing boat garbage. In addition, in each process of garbage collection, transportation, recycling and sale, they use video recording, QR code and blockchain technology to record the whole chain and cannot be tampered with. The QR code can also be used to query the behavior of the whole chain on the final product. A mobile phone case made of marine plastic collected by Blue Cycle can be found by scanning the code to know that this mobile phone case contains 8.4 grams of marine plastic, and the entire process of plastic recycling, transportation and manufacturing can also be checked.

The visual traceability of the entire process of the "Blue Cycle" project has solved the global technical problem of full-process supervision from "ocean to shelf". With this model, the "Blue Cycle" project has successfully obtained high-value orders.

When the first order of marine plastic waste was successfully traded at a high value, the gears of the "Blue Cycle" environmental protection project began to turn slowly. The project feeds back a large part of the profits to fishermen and residents along the coast, encouraging them to collect marine waste and sell it for recycling. Now, the "Blue Cycle" project has been promoted to nine counties and cities in Zhejiang Province, with more than 60,000 people and more than 10,000 ships participating in the collection, recycling more than 10,000 tons of marine waste and more than 2,000 tons of marine plastic waste.

The United Nations Environment Program's representative in China, Tu Ruihe: "Being able to track the entire process of sorting and transportation of each batch of plastics to processing and sales has increased transparency. The most important point is that the profits from the sales are fed back to the front-line collectors to increase their income, encourage their enthusiasm, and ensure that the project is sustainable. These are innovative in the world, and this is why the Earth Guardian stood out from more than 2,500 competitors."

Today, the "Blue Cycle" is not only a project participated by the government and Blue View Technology, but more than 230 upstream and downstream companies, such as recycled plastic processing plants, textile factories, clothing brands, etc. have joined in, providing a broader space for the recycling of marine plastics, increasing the value of marine plastics, and making the blue cycle more sustainable.

Marine plastic waste management is a global challenge, and China has begun to take action. The fact that "Blue Cycle" was awarded the "Earth Champion Award" shows that this new governance model of China's solution has been recognized internationally, and also shows China's determination to manage marine plastic waste. Marine plastic pollution has a significant impact on our environment, health and economy. On the one hand, it needs to be recycled and processed, but more importantly, it starts with each of us to reduce plastic waste entering the ocean from the source as much as possible.

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